


I'll give you the stars

by finlaylou



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Child Abuse, glow in the dark stars, lulabies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 17:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5172524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finlaylou/pseuds/finlaylou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam has a nightmare and Ronan's solution is stupid but effective</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll give you the stars

Adam woke up gasping for breath and absolutely terrified. This had to have been the worst nightmare yet, by about a million times. there had been nothing unusual about the content, his dad and fists flying at his face and body, but for some reason this seemed one million times worse and he wasn’t sure why. He could feel his breathing speeding up, his heart pounding and blood rushing.

He took up his little mantra for times like this and began whispering to himself “You’re okay, you’re okay, he’s not here, he’s not here, it’s just a dream.” Adam was a firm believer that if he repeated this to himself often enough then maybe one day he could make himself believe it. He just needed to calm down.

But this was not getting better and he wasn’t calming down even a little, every time he managed to take a few long breaths another image of a sneer or a fist or an insult would take over his brain and when he was finally back to himself a little more he would be back at square one all over again. Now every creak of the floorboards or howl of the wind had transformed into the sound of his father's footsteps outside the door. This wasn’t fair, nothing was fair. Not only did he have to go through this absolute shit once, but now that he had finally managed to escape he was trapped in an endless loop go nightmares. 

Suddenly a solution occurred to him. The last time this had happened while Ronan had been spending the night there, in his bed with their arms all wrapped around each other. He had been panicking and trembling so much that he had managed to wake Ronan up (a considerable feat considering that Ronan slept like the dead). Surprisingly, Ronan, who you would not think of as an even remotely calming influence, was a godsend at that time, he just tightened his grip around Adam and began whispering random phrases in his ear, some in English and some in languages that Adam was too tired to identify. 

It had taken a while but eventually Adam had calmed down and Ronan whispered in his ear “If this happens again I need you to call me. okay? I need to know you’re not trying to get through this by yourself. I know you don't like help but please just this one thing.” Adam, already incredibly tired and warm at this point had just mumbled a fine and taken hold of the pinky finger Ronan had offered and said “pinky promise”

Remembering this, Adam reached one quivering hand out from under his blankets and grabbed the cheap ‘pay as you go’ cell phone on his table and pressed the first number in his contacts. He knew Ronan would answer, one of the perks of having a part time insomniac for a boyfriend was that said boyfriend was always available to come and visit at absurd hours.

“Hey Parrish, what’s up?” Roman’s voice came through the tinny speaker

“Hey, can you come over?” There must have been something in Adam’s voice that indicated that it was an urgent situation because he almost instantly heard the sounds of Ronan scrambling out of bed and rummaging around for shoes in his cluttered room.

“Yeah, sure I’m leaving now, I’ll be there in five, okay?” 

“Okay,” Adam whispered, most of his energy being spent on holding himself together.

“Do you want me to stay on the phone?” 

As much as Adam did, in fact, want Ronan to stay on the phone, if he did then it would use up all of his credit and even in the midst of terror Adam was always as practical as possible. “No, it’s okay”

“Alright, I’ll be there really soon, just breathe”

Adam was breathing, the sound of Ronan’s voice having soothed him a little, it confirmed that it was over, that things had changed and that there was someone out there who loved Adam Parrish and would get up at three in the morning just because he had asked.

Adam focused on all of these things for a while, composing a list of all the people who he knew loved him, the list was pretty short but until recently it had been empty, so he cherished each and every name. Gansey loved him like a brother, they fought like brothers but had the same resolve to stick by each other no matter what, there was no doubt that there was nothing that one of then they wouldn't do for each other. Blue loved him as well in her strange way, she knitted him jumpers in winter, helped fix his school uniform when it frayed, and bought food over from 300-fox way when she knew he was working too hard to get any. Noah loved him too, he would come to his apartment and make little glitter globes out of bottles that were lying around and share some of his seemingly endless happiness with Adam when he was feeling down. And Ronan definitely loved him, it showed in all his actions towards him, the way he would wrap his leg around Adam’s under the table at Ninos, and dream up hand lotion, and drive out to see him at ridiculous hours just to make sure he was okay.

Adam heard knocking at his door, it was a long and ludicrously complicated rhythm but one that he recognised as the secret code he and Ronan had made up as a joke a few days before. The fact that Ronan had remembered it brought a small smile to his face as he managed to drag himself out of bed to open the door. 

The second he did he felt a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around him and he wrapped his arms around the body attached to said arms, he bent his head to press his ear against Ronan’s chest, hearing the comforting ‘thump thump’ of his heartbeat. 

“You okay?” Ronan whispered into his ear.

“Yeah, just a nightmare,” Adam replied, his Henrietta accent slipping out in exhaustion. 

“I brought something to maybe help”

“What on earth did you bring, you idiot,” Adam said, smiling into Ronan’s chest.

Ronan stepped away and reached into his pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a packet of those little glow in the dark stars that children stuck on their ceilings.

“Why on earth would those help?” Adam asked, amused at his boyfriend’s suggestions as well as genuinely curious.

“Well, my mum used to tell me to count the stars to fall asleep, and you can't see any stars out of your shitty tiny little window so I got you some.” It was moments like this that always surprised Adam, moments when Ronan would share something that meant a lot to him and give some of it to him. He found himself grinning like a lovestruck teenager and, to be fair, he was.

“Okay then, let's do it.”

It wasn’t hard to attach the little things to the ceiling, both of them were able to reach it and stick them on, laughing sometimes as they did at the absurdity of the situation, here they were, two teenaged boys, sticking glow in the dark stars to a ceiling at four in the morning. Between the presence of another person in his apartment to make some more noise to disguise any creepy sounds, the almost childish activity of decorating the room and Ronan’s swearing when one of the stars fell down and poked him in the eye, Adam was feeling a lot better by the end of it, when they were both lying, limbs tangled, on his mattress staring up at the artificial green glow of the little stars. 

“Okay, I’ll give you this one Lynch, this was one of your rare not-stupid ideas”   
Ronan pretended to take offence “Parrish, name one idea I’ve had that you have ever regretted being part of.”

Adam realised that there wasn’t any, even when Ronan’s ideas seemed stupid there was always a reason behind them and they were always fun and fun was something that was generally lacking from Adam’s life.

“Okay, you win,” he said with a sigh, leaning over to give Ronan a peck on the lips and smiling into it.

After that, they tried to sleep, and while Adam had calmed down a lot, he was not ready to actually try to fall asleep yet, so he just lay there, listening to the sound of Ronan’s even breathing.

“Hey, Adam,” The sudden sound of Ronan’s voice in the near silence made him jump, “do you know what else my mum would do when I couldn’t sleep?”

“What?” 

“Well, she used to sing me this really old song”

Adam didn't know if Ronan was just making conversation t try to fill some of the silence but he suddenly really wanted to hear this song.

“Do you know it?” Ronan gave a nod. “Sing it to me?”

Ronan sighed as if this would be a huge effort, but he also started singing,

It wasn’t a language that Adam could recognise, but it sounded old maybe even ancient, but the general feeling of warmth that the words were meant to convey still washed over him. The rhythm of the song lilting and calming. And Ronan’s voice was the best part, low and soft and comforting, he guessed that some those childhood music lessons had done some good, but there was also a sense that there hadn't been much improvement to be made, Adam could listen to it all day. But as he listened and focused of the sound he felt his eyes getting heavier and he could feel himself forgetting the words as they were sung until eventually he was asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry if this is terrible or out of character, I just had this idea and it just happened


End file.
